What SHOULD you do?

This is a discussion on What SHOULD you do? within the Home (And Away From Home) Defense Discussion forums, part of the Related Topics category; After reading about the recent mall shooting and the discussions following it, I have a question. If you find yourself in this situation, what would ...

What SHOULD you do?

After reading about the recent mall shooting and the discussions following it, I have a question. If you find yourself in this situation, what would you say are the first 3 most important things to do when the shooting starts?

It depends on what you are going to do, hide, run or fight.
If you are going to run, have your escape route planned in advance, preferably two escape routes. Move from cover to cover. Leave belongings which do not provide cover, but try to carry something to fight with.

If you have to hide, barricade the door, silence your phone ringer, and find a weapon.

If you are going to engage, maintain a good ODE loop, understand that it is strictly a shoot situation, and act with extreme violence.

Serve my country, swear an oath to protect it, pay my taxes, fly old glory in the front yard, love and protect my family, honor the vets before me and help fellow americans in need.By definition my country now calls me a radical

It depends on what you are going to do, hide, run or fight.
If you are going to run, have your escape route planned in advance, preferably two escape routes. Move from cover to cover. Leave belongings which do not provide cover, but try to carry something to fight with.

If you have to hide, barricade the door, silence your phone ringer, and find a weapon.

If you are going to engage, maintain a good ODE loop, understand that it is strictly a shoot situation, and act with extreme violence.

Excellent advice on the phone ringer! In a moment like that it is easy to forget it. Someone calls and your concealment is blown.

Serve my country, swear an oath to protect it, pay my taxes, fly old glory in the front yard, love and protect my family, honor the vets before me and help fellow americans in need.By definition my country now calls me a radical

If you practice a "When/Then" mind set, you'll not need to formulate a plan, because you've already done that in advance. Action is always quicker then reaction, and keeping that in mind will save your life. 1. Cover not concealment, 2. Draw, 3. Front sights. Always remember that extreme violence, judiciously applied will carry the day. Be safe.

My CPL class instructor is a hand-to-hand and edged weapons expert and police marksman. He put it this way, assuming you can identify where the shooter is:

1. Run from the gun and exit from the situation- statistically most BGs with handguns aren't deadly accurate beyond 30ft. If you can get farther away than that your survival odds go way up.
2. If you can't run - find cover to identify an exit strategy or a position to return fire.
3. If you can't cover or are covered and the threat persists - take aim on the threat and shoot center of mass until you are sure the threat is neutralized.

Of course, these are general rules. If near the shooter, 1 and 2 could be analyzed in a millisecond. That's why we all should practice our concealed draw....

If you have to use a mnemonic device, like OODA... do it... but you are "doing" that anyway, naturally...

The most important thing you can do, is SHUT DOWN, or at the least SLOW DOWN all the normal reactions. Adrenaline will be the main factor... and it is hard to condition yourself to over-ride that response. Your time window is small, but you have to maintain control...

Breathing will help, controlling your breathing, that is. People tend to over oxygenate when in panic mode.... early signs in those ready to go into battle are big sighs, blowing out the breath, clenching their hands, dancing on balls of feet, etc. Same is true of us in a defensive posture... and, it's probably the reason for the prolonged scream (care of the horror flicks)...It's a "regulating device" for over oxygenation.

The best thing you can do is practice.

Like, Right Now would be a good time to go to the mall, for example, and practice. It's busy, it's crowded, it's mayhem, it's shopping season... and people are bordering on crazy, antic. Go with no plan to shop.... go with a plan to escape the madness.... practice going against the crowd, to a nearby exit. Practice peeling off the crowd while being carried along my them... to an exit or a hidey hole.

If you can't practice now... close to the reality of the panic in an active shooter in the mall scenario... then you can also go when it's not so busy... and pretend.... not as good... but you can clearly see the exits, the hidey holes, and so on.... imagine yourself swimming up stream to one of those exits, or being pulled along with a crowd... and moving to an exit...

If you want to be prepared for an emergency... play "what if" games with yourself, on the way into the place where something like this can occur.... and start looking for the evasion routes you can take...

We, as adults don't have school fire drills as often as we did as kids... but remember the rules from them... be calm... walk calmly to an exit... etc... Running and panic may draw unnecessary attention... stay with "the flow" surrounded by other bodies.. to get yo to your destination... and escape... at least to an area where you can observe and plan your next move(s)

My wife and I have a 'game' when we are strolling in any mall. We identify exits, even exits that aren't marked as such ("only authorized employee" signs and the like). She knows to distance herself from me if the threat is near...little things like that. She will try for the nearest exit and I will follow/cover...yeah, we are serious.

Most malls are designed with a service corridor behind the stores and a back door leading from each store in the mall to the service corridor. When thousands of people in a mall are all trying to get out of a few public doorways, you should avoid the public doors and try to exit through the back door of one of the stores into the service corridor and then use one of the doors leading from the service corridor to the outside

I wanted them to know the steps "run, hide, fight". Run/leave the area as fast as possible; hide if you can't run to safety; fight if meeting the shooter is imminent.

A pistol vs an AR is a bad match. Run, hide, fight is pretty good advice for anyone and I'd want my family to follow that, personally and depending on the circumstances I might leave some of my options open. It just depends?

Turn the election's in 2014 to a "2A Revolution". It will serve as a 1994 refresher not to "infringe" on our Second Amendment. We know who they are now.........SEND 'EM HOME. Our success in this will be proportional to how hard we work to make it happen.